The following are my own thoughts on common skateboarding injuries. I am not a doctor yet so heed my advice at your own risk!  

1)CUTS AND SCRAPES
My worst scrape was actually from downhill mountain biking where I struck a root and went flying over the handlebars. I scraped off a chunk of flesh above my hip. A weird cut I got from skateboarding was when I put my hand down to brace my fall and cut my finger open on the sharp edge of a ceramic floor tile.

Prevention:
- Wear jeans or pants and long sleeved shirts! 

- Learn to roll like a beach ball instead of trying to body surf concrete!

- Stop falling down!

Treatment:
- Clean the wound! Get all the sand, dust, hair, grass and cookie crumbs out of there! This is best accomplished by flushing with clean water.

- Disinfect! Dry the wound and apply some antiseptic lotion, cream or powder.

- Dress the wound! Cover the damaged area with plasters/band-aids/bandages.

- Maintenance! Do not spill your coke on your wound, keep it dry and free from contaminants! Replace the bandage and apply more antiseptics as needed until a nice scab forms.

- Recovery! Try not to pick your scabs prematurely even though it is immensely fun. Only pick off the pieces that are loose to reveal beautiful new skin!

Caution:
- For gods sake do not suck on your wounds with your mouth! Your saliva is full of bacteria! The only time it is ok to play with saliva is when you kiss!

- If your wound is not healing after a few days, and is leaking green/yellow goo, its seriously infected so go see a doctor!

2)SPRAINED ANKLES
If you skateboard, you WILL sprain your ankles. I’ve sprained my ankles countless times in the past but each time they would hurt less and heal quicker than before, and I also learned how to avoid them better. Nowadays I rarely sprain them and they usually don’t hurt more than a day so its no big deal.

Prevention:
- In the middle of a trick, if you know your skateboard is way out of position, kick it away from you so you don’t accidentally land on it all weird like an octopus!

- If you are going to land on your feet, make sure they land on a flat surface and not like on an edge of a step. Move your legs and feet into position to absorb the landing, don’t keep them spread out after the trick or whatever, this ain’t no freeze frame photoshoot!

- A common ankle-roller is when you drag your front foot past the nose too far on an ollie. When this happens, quickly pull your foot to the side so it doesnt get run-over under the nose when you land!

Treatment:
- R.I.C.E = Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate. Mmmm… delicious!

- Rest! Stop jumping around on your swollen foot! If you keep moving, the fragile blood clots forming around the damaged ligaments will have a hard time forming. You need proper clots for healing to begin!

- Ice! Apply ice ASAP. Don’t freeze your foot tho, keep the ice on for 10-20mins every hour or two. Keep doing this for 2 days. This helps with the pain and swelling and prevents cell death due to overwork and lack of oxygen!

- Compress! Wrap your ankle nice and snug to help with the swelling. Just snug is fine, don’t go crazy tight! If you don’t have anything to wrap it with, try wearing a bunch of socks 7 sizes too small.

- Elevate! Lift your foot up as high as you can 24/7 until swelling and bruising is completely gone, and I mean completely like totally. I personally had one bad sprain that I thought was fine after a few weeks, but then it never got any better after 3 more months so I visited a doctor and got schooled about elevating it 24/7/365! So just put your foot on the table while you eat, and prop it up on stacked pillows while you sleep! When in doubt, raise your foot!

- Rehab! Once the swelling and most of the pain is gone, its time to build a stronger, more flexible ankle! Do ankle rotations whenever you are bored! Physiotherapists will probably give you a giant rubber band thing to do some resistance training with, but I suppose you could just tie some weights to your toes and do some ankle-lifts. Another fun excercise would be to try balancing on your toes while striking different kung fu poses while screaming, “WAAAAAAA!!” Your ankles will think they belong to Bruce Lee and start growing stronger.

Caution:
- Do not see traditional Chinese senseis! Even though I believe Bruce Lee is a God, I only trust scientific western medicine. From one personal experience, Traditional Chinese senseis rely on violent massage and the application of heat, which is the complete opposite of Rest and Ice!

3)HEEL BRUISE
I’ve had one serious heel bruising incident from bailing badly down 10 stairs. My heels exploded and I couldn’t put weight on them for 3 months. Ever since then, my heels are pretty sensitive so I can’t jump down many stairs unless I’m wearing shoes with 3 inch airbags.

Prevention:
- Wear shoes with thicker soles or those with gimmicky airbags/gels/silicone implants!

- Do not jump down more than 10 steps too many times!

- Learn to dive forward into a roll to minimize impact to your feet. Do not try to prop your feet out in front to absorb the forward momentum, its bad enough your feet have to deal with the downward impact. Keep your feet back or directly under you. When you land, bend your knees and let your upper body naturally lunge foward. Tuck yourself into a ball and roll over your shoulder. Basically, try to spread the impact over a period of time with meaty parts of your body (don’t bruise your hips!). For more info search online for “Ukemi” to learn Judo break fall techniques!

Treatment:
- R.I.C.E. = Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate! See 2)SPRAINED ANKLES!

Caution:
- See 2)SPRAINED ANKLES!

4)GUN SHOT WOUNDS
It is no secret me and Barry robbed a bank to get money to build Love Skatepark. Well what you might not know was that Barry shat his pants at the last minute and refused to get out of the van. So I was like, whatever, I grabbed my BB gun–im not a violent person–and charged in. Basically I was running point and covering rear at the same time, kinda like Rambo: one man army. So I kicked the doors down and burst in yelling, “EVERYONE DOWN ON THE GROUND NOW! I AINT PLAYIN! DOWN ON THE GROUND NOWWW!!!” All of a sudden I see like 10 guards coming for me right, but i got skillz and just went all Matrix style on them. I disarm and tie them all up before they even know what hit them cos I’m like Neo right?

So at this point everyone’s like holy shit this guy really aint playin! I march over to the teller and tell’er to give me all the money. She proceeds to open the vault and shovel piles of cash for like 10 minutes until I’m satisfied that I got more stacks in my bags than George A. Romero has zombies. So I tell’er thats enough and heave the bags over my shoulders. I felt like Santa Claus so I bellowed, “Ho Ho Ho” as I made my way to the exit.

Now the next part, you probably wouldn’t believe it but just as I reached for the door handles, the doors sprung open and towering in front of me guess who I find? ROBOCOP. Yes, Robocop appeared before me like a knight in shining armor, only I was no princess to be rescued. I pulled out my BB gun and at the same time Robocop had like a toaster oven at the side of his leg from which he grabbed a huge gun. I tightened my grip on my BB gun, and inspected the large calibre weapon that Robocop had pointed at my chest. Alas, I was outgunned.

Robocop then began to speak to me. Out the corner of my eye I could see that Barry had shat his pants again but nevertheless had the van ready for my getaway. I listened to Robocop intently for about 2 minutes before I realised I didn’t understand Robotoglish and made a mad dash for the getaway van. Robocop of course did what he had to do and opened fire with his automatic hand cannon of death.

And thats how I got shot 16 times in the back! You think thats bad, you should have seen the getaway van; block of swiss cheese on wheels no joke!

Prevention:
- Build a solid body like mine so you can take multiple gun shots e-z!

- Bullet proof vests!

- Do not rob banks!

Treatment:
- Ever seen Rambo III? Yes, its exactly like that. Always carry a satchel of gun powder in case you have to quickly disinfect and close horrific gunshot wounds.

Caution:
- Silver bullets sting!

- Armor piercing bullets too!

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